


Pyromania

by Roriette



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bonnie & Clyde, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Past Drug Use, Pyromania
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 13:07:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2622881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roriette/pseuds/Roriette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robbed a bank, stole a car, chased by the police, lost the police on a wild goose race, burned a bridge, and took some of the cop cars in the fire. Not bad, he thought, for a Christmas evening.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pyromania

**Author's Note:**

> thanks special bb jamio for checking over first part ilu lots lots lots

**Pyromania**

-

Driving down the street alongside rundown apartments and dirty, yellow stained houses while on the run was an act that had already lost its luster months back.

But the occupants of the stolen convertible pretended it was exhilarating. Pretended they were on a Great Escape from the Uniformed Men; pretended they were the stars in an action movie; pretended that if they curved onto the bridge, they'd crash straight into the railings and fall down into the murky waters of this rat infested city. Life was meant to play like that, was meant to be fun while it lasted. Otherwise, what was the point?

Hide flicked the lighter with his free hand, and the flame danced in the wind, breathing close to his chin. Brushed his skin like it wanted to burn him, and he wanted it to burn. He liked playing with fire, because it was an art not many found the thrill in. The burn would be so  _satisfying_.

"Hide."

The lighter was taken from his hand. Nimble, gentle fingers, but rough, adorned by scars and burns. Black painted nails, red droplets staining a trail to the wrist. Their adventures had added up.

"Sorry, 'neki," Hide said, and grinned. He returned to driving, both hands now, because they were nearing the suspending bridge. Just like an action movie, it separated in half, and they were climbing up the rising bridge, seat belts the only thing keeping them from falling out of their seats, an inch from death. The police sirens sounded in the distance behind them.

"They're coming. What should we do, Hide?" Kaneki asked.

"I don't know, Kaneki," he replied. "Should we jump?"

"That sounds scary."

"I'll keep you safe, promise."

"Really?"

"Yep."

"Then I trust you, Hide. Let's jump."

"You should, since I'm driving." Hide turned and flashed a bright smile. "So get ready to hold on tight. I'm gonna count to three."

"I'm scared, Hide." Kaneki leaned back in the passenger's seat and brought his legs up on the dashboard, holding Hide's lighter in one hand and a novel in the other.

Hide grinned cheekily. "I'm sure you are."

They were at the very top of the suspended bridge, and the other end was steadily dropping down. In the back, the whining of cop cars sounded, and by the echoes, Hide could tell they were about two minutes from being arrested.

"One."

He stepped down on the accelerator hard, and their bodies jerked forward, heads knocking into the windshield. He bit his lip, and it stung. The air bag sprung up as the vehicle flew across the distance, leaping from one end of the bridge to the other. Kaneki tossed the lighter out the open window after locking the switch in place with pin and tape, and then he was pushed into the air bag.

Two.

It was all in the risk. They were exchanging their lives for a minute's thrill. Paying for excitement with their bodies. Living for danger.

_BOOOOM!_

The suspended bridge behind them exploded just as their vehicle landed on the opposite end, the vibrations and impact causing their teeth to knock and bodies to tremble. The heat of the incinerated bridge warmed their backs. Played with fire again, didn't they?

No, that was wrong. They didn't play with fire.

They  _were_  fire.

"Three," Hide counted, vision dizzy and body sore all over. Again. Robbed a bank, stole a car, chased by the police, lost the police on a wild goose race, burned a bridge, and took some of the cop cars in the fire. Not bad, he thought, for a Christmas evening.

Kaneki climbed out from the passenger seat, unnatural dark hair in disarray. The wheels of the stolen convertible were busted, Hide noticed. Good thing they’d planned ahead and had a motorbike waiting in the bushes. Another point to the criminals.

"Still scared?" Hide teased, walking over and and putting an arm over his partner in crime. "Good job on the oil, 'neki! I was thinking for a sec that it'd be pretty bad if you missed and got some on the car. Sooo, good thing you didn't."

"I wouldn't miss. And," Kaneki muttered, pulling away, "you'd enjoy it." He cracked his index, an old habit carried over from a troubled home. An unconscious reflex learned from an abusive guardian. "Wouldn't you, Hide?"

Hide blinked at the look in Kaneki's eyes.

 _You'd enjoy getting burned, sadistic bastard_ , was conveyed in that look.

And Hide laughed, because it was true. "Yeah, I would. Maybe you shouldn't have missed."

\----------

 

He found Kaneki in the corner of the trailer, huddled with his knees to his chest and bare feet digging into the velvet rug they picked up at an auction.

“Kane - “ Hide gasped.

“Don’t.”

He was in that state. Blank eyes filtered under white strands of hair, the black wig having been thrown into the flames of a campfire they passed by on their way home. Kaneki was just Kaneki now. He had discarded his persona. The scars that lined his pale elbows to his wrist, some deep and pinpointed to the point of a permanent red, others shallow pink in the almost process of fading. Almost process.

Because sometimes, he found Kaneki passed out in the bathroom of the trailer, kitchen knife in his hand, lax in slumber, and though there was never blood, the intention hung in the atmosphere like an albatross. He'd carry that still body out of the lukewarm water and put him back to bed. Wipe him down, dry his hair, and cover him in a warm fluffy bath towel. Would choke on his breath at the thought of  _what if the next time I feel his pulse and he won't be there anymore_ , and then he'd think more and inhale lost air until the rush of tears froze -  _what if he's already not there?_

And he'd sit next to him, on the wooden floor next to the futon, until Kaneki's shivers and pained grimaces, jerks and broken mumbles, frowns and clenched teeth, his trembles of " _minus seven_ " faded, and all that was left was peace. And quiet.

He’d wake up the following morning, brown eyes slowly opening to the break of dawn in between the blinds. The daylight entered into those blank irises, shedding bright light in the hallways of dark corridors. The weary bags under his eyelashes, the mussed white hair the aftermath of a restless sleep, the languid tilt of his head to see Hide at his bedside - all of his movements like a newborn trying to accustom to a world outside of its mother’s womb.

"It's morning, isn't it...Hide?" he would say, and crack a smile. Something warm and innocent he once had, maybe at the orphanage before he moved next door and became Hide's neighbor. Maybe before he became the adopted son of an infamous serial killer, torturer, murderer - a high profile criminal by the name of Jason. Maybe before those chilling incidents and hollow screams inside the silent home.

"Yeah. It's morning, Kaneki," Hide would reply and then lightly brush his hand over Kaneki's endlessly scarred one. And he would smile, show all his teeth and the dimple in his left cheek, as he held their hands and squeezed Kaneki tightly.

It was unspoken, but the squeeze was Hide's way of letting Kaneki know that he was there, and always would be there. That he was glad they had made it to another morning.

But now, under the light of the afternoon sun and melting snow, Kaneki looked like a child revisited by his worst nightmare. His eyes blank, unfeeling - not there. His spirit gone. Like a shell of the Kaneki he knew. Those eyes were -

Haunted.

Hide dropped the grocery bags on the floor, canned food and water bottles clattering, and raced over to Kaneki. His heart was jumping rapidly, loud thumps that fell all the way to his guts, the kind that was heavy and piercing and made him feel the weight of his fear to his very bones. He was scared.

"Kaneki, what's wrong? Did something happen? Is it the police? Whatever it is, you can tell me," rushed out of him as he knelt in front of the albino. He looked him over, panicking as he checked for injuries, bruises, new scars. But everywhere he saw was the blemishes of the past. No wounds. That meant nothing physical occurred. Hide breathed in relief. Nothing physical, which meant something else had happened. Something that managed to trigger those hard, soulless eyes. Something that provoked this disassociated personality to emerge from within Kaneki.

A recollection of those agonized whimpers from the house next door, strange broken laughter, cold eyes, and a tall bulky figure flittered through Hide's mind. He remembered his mom telling him not to go over -  _"Don't look at him, pretend you don't know him, pretend, Hide. Don't get involved in other people's business, okay? Listen to your mother. Do you want to die so badly?"_  He didn't know why, despite being right next door, closest to the crime, he couldn't do anything for that boy. Why he had to act like he wasn't subjected to those terrifying noises in the middle of the night. Why he had trouble sleeping, and neither his mom or dad would comfort him. Why he was struck in the face by his own mother when all he did was wave through the window to the frightened little dark-haired boy next door. Why he was punished for showing that humanity existed.

In that cockroach-infested home, his drunken father was on the moth eaten couch in the living room, surrounded by empty bottles on the floor and another woman - a whore he met on the job - while his mother broke down, alone. And Hide saw the hurt in his mother's eyes. An irreversible hurt, shards of betrayal etched into her caused by the very man that was supposed to protect her.

He wondered why no one was doing anything, why everything was so messed up, why people pretended not to care when they did, why he lived in a world that rotated on broken engines. But he was a child, a mere child in the land of broken adults, so he didn't know what to do. He wanted to do something for someone. Just once, in this life.

He wanted to save the boy next door.

So he used his father's phone to dial the police and told them that there was a fire in the neighborhood.

And then he lit his house on fire.

-

"Give it to me,” Kaneki said, standing up. The trailer ceiling was a couple of centimeters above their heights, just enough space that they could move without bumping their heads.

 _It_. Hide realized the meaning immediately, and he crossed his arms, staring resolutely at the albino. "No, Kaneki. I won’t give it to you. You promised me that you'd stop. Remember?"

"Hide," Kaneki’s voice tilted anxiously, hissing. Index finger going  _crack, crack_. "Please."

Kaneki stepped forward and then backed him up against the refrigerator. Their legs tangled, and he leaned in, putting his head in the crook of Hide's neck and shoulder. "Please," he breathed, blowing hotly into his ear. “Just this once. I can’t take it anymore.”

Hide's breathing stuttered, and he held onto the rough, scarred hands firmly to the side, keeping the desperate want at bay. "No." It felt like the hardest thing to do, to reject that plea. To reject the desperate look in Kaneki's eyes. To reject Kaneki himself.

But Kaneki wouldn't let it go just like that. Wouldn't let him reject him that easily. He had relapsed, truly relapsed, into the addiction despite having been through the withdrawal and recovery process for over three years. And now, he would fall into demise just to appease this addiction. He must have encountered his ex-guardian earlier. And as soon as he looked into those cold, psychopathic eyes, his control must have been broken.

Now he needed relief. Needed a distraction. He was taught to rely on drugs. Jason must have fed him enough that he couldn’t live without them. Something to ease him from the suffering of knowing that he wasn't going to get better. 

That there was nothing good to live for.

"Please," the puffs of Kaneki's pleas on his skin, the feel of Kaneki's soft but dry lips - he'd been biting them, Hide could tell, from the red line splitting his bottom lip, but it didn't take away the desire at all. It didn't help him at all.

He was losing control. Kaneki pressed up against him, bringing their nether regions together, and Hide sucked in the moan. It was hot pressure between their clothes. It would be so easy to just give in like he wanted to. Desperately wanted to.

Hide put his hands on Kaneki's bony hips and turned him around, flipping their positions so that the albino was pressed against the fridge instead. One hand on Kaneki's hip and the other pinning his wrist above his head, Hide leaned in and brushed his mouth over Kaneki's ear. "You don't want it.  _I_  don't want you to want it. As a friend. Your best friend. As the person most important to you." He dropped his head on Kaneki's shoulder and mouthed over the ragged tee adorning his delicate skin, voice hushed and wavering, "I don't want you to take that drug anymore. Please?" 

He rolled his hips, pushing his hardness against Kaneki's in a natural grind. Hide could see Kaneki's teeth biting down again on his lip and the red flush over his cheeks, the fingers of his trapped hand clenching and digging into his palm. 

And he couldn't explain it if he could, how perfectly they fit, body to body, like matching puzzle pieces. Two boys who grew up in the slums of a metropolis and learned to survive in this cruel world. At the top of the chain was gangs, and the bottom was kids who would eventually climb up the ranks using the same, unsightly tactics their predecessors used. They were those kids. 

Kaneki was a picture. A dirty, wanton picture, and a broken, beautiful doll that Hide cherished with everything he had.

"Mmf...Hide."

The small utter rolling from his mouth, from his pink tongue, had Hide weak to his knees. Whatever Kaneki wished for, he would grant. He knew that, but he tried to fight it anyway. For Kaneki's good. For Kaneki's wellbeing.

They couldn't both be broken things.

"If I don't take it, I'll be helpless. I need it. It's just medicine, Hide. Don't you get it?  _Medicine_."

Hide moved from Kaneki's hip to his back and circled his arm around the fragile boy's waist. He leaned down until their faces were level. They looked at each other, and that was when Hide relived his memories.

Shards of betrayal scattered into millions reflected in Kaneki's eyes. A world that ran on broken engines.

"I get it," Hide murmured. He trailed his fingers down the ivory cheek, and he leaned in till their foreheads touched. "I get it," he repeated, lips brushing Kaneki's.

This was just medicine. 

 


End file.
